Cheap ‘n’ Chic: Boots No. 17 Eyeshadow Trios Review

Boots No. 17 Trios have been around as long as my first training bra which I waited till I was FOURTEEN for (thanks mother) and I bought two more the other week purely for logistical reasons.

What reasons do I mean?

Well…I needed points to get a free lip gloss. Boots had an offer of 200 points (£2) for every trio purchased so I gifted that spending £10 on two trios would give me the 400 points I needed to claim a Chanel Lipgloss.

I picked two and I picked two quickly. One was from the new Candy Collection, called Dolly Mixture – a slightly bizarre mixture of matte candy pastel types shades:

I also purchased one called Barely There –

No idea why but I thought this could be an excellent wear to work kind of trio.

When it comes to pigmentation and smoothness – I have to say these No. 17 eyeshadows are much better than I remember. They still aren’t bursting with pigmentation, but they are quite creamy – especially barely there.

On the eyes, Dolly Mixture:

Like I said – a REALLY weird combo but it sort of works. Its not too chalky.

Barely there is quite light and you won’t get much definition from it but hey, the clue is in the name. Its BARELY THERE!

I’m quite fond of it actually, its truly foolproof.

Verdict:

Ok, so this won’t be replacing my Cle De Peau anytime soon. But still – I wish I was a teen when this quality of make up was around, when I was a kid it was all Constance Carroll and Collection 2000.

I paid £4.99 each for these and as I said before…for strategic reasons! See the range here.

Comments

The funny thing is that I think I bought that exact eyeshadow trio (the Dolly mixture one) or something with the exact same colours from another brand in my first forays into makeup. I was a late starter so that was maybe 7-8 years ago? It was chalky and I had no idea how to wear it. You can be sure I didn’t wear it in the gorgeous, subtle way that you did… It was less rainbow flutter and more hello blue-tak eyelids… Good times.

PS. Thanks again for all the lovely makeup. I am in LOVE with the UNT dewy powder already – are there any stockists/did you get it in the UK?

This week, I picked up two 17 single eyeshadows that I loved the colour of – and got a third in the free gift tin with a red nail polish and pretty teal/turqoise mini-eyeliner pencil.

Mardi Gras – a beautiful taupey mid/dark brown truffle with shimmer.

Statuesque – pink nude shade with golden shimmer – this is what I wanted Urban Decay’s Sin to look like, but sin is paler and more peach toned.

Viva Diva – my freebie, although I’d been eyeing it up too – like the pencil, this is a pretty teal/turqoise shimmer reminiscent of Urban Decay’s Alice aka Painkiller

I thought the colours and texture were beautiful, and they swatched amazingly well. Unfortunately the pigment and lasting power on my eyelids was abysmal.

I tried all I could do with Mardi Gras as a lid wash – I tried with a powder brush, I tried with a sponge tip, I tried it over an eye primer, and I finally tried it on wet – only the wet application stuck around for more than a couple of hours, which is a real shame.

However, I think I’ve already got two or three matches for Mardi Gras in my collection so I’ll be trying them instead of despairing we’ll see if my Pixi or Ruby & Millie compacts deliver better eyeshadow quality!